I had a very long ,  often contentious,  but respectful  conversation with a friend on the phone yesterday morning.  My friend is very well versed in economics and investments.  He is  also very supportive of Obama. In this case,  I have to conclude his support ventures over  into “to a fault” territory. 

The argument is this:  We  both saw the  documentary “Inside Job”.  I asked him about the rather overt criticisms of Obama ,  knowing his support  for the “compromises” Obama has made and that he “ had no choice” but to give the Republicans the extension on the Bush tax cuts,  in order to save the middle class tax cuts.  ( I continue to believe he could have ad should have called their bluff,  believing that even they would not want to be saddled with the responsibility of raising taxes on the  Middle Class,  not because they care about the Middle Class,  but because they would be afraid  of the political consequences).

Inside Job provided some somewhat extensive history of several now very strategically placed Obama economic advisors,  and their involvement in paving the way for continued dismantling of regulation in the investment sector. When I asked my friend what he thought of this implicit criticism of Obama,  he said  that Obama had no choice.  That these people, Geitner, Greenspan, Paulson,  etc.  were the “best minds” and “best experienced” about this economic crisis.  I am puzzled that anyone would think that “experience” in this situation,  particularly when hat “experience” is taking a role of an enabler of what led to the meltdown,  is anything good.  He responded that this was something that nobody foresaw.  That it is such a “complicated” apparatus,  that we HAD TO GET these particular people. 

Sorry,  but  I simply could not go with that.  There is a  limit somewhere in RE-entrusting our economic vulnerabilities to such a long  list of the SAME people who oversaw the mess.  I also am not at all convinced that “noone foresaw this”.  There were numerous people interviewed in the film that were warning about this.  And  yet they were not only ignored,  but these “experienced” Obama advisors CONTINUED to oppose any attempt to regulate derivatives and the lending market ratings game that sprung up out of this. 

So there’s where I come down.  And the fact that these people haven’t done anything of any consequence (if anything AT ALL)  to address and hold accountable the  massive corruption at these institutions that engaged in these practices. Indeed, some of them CAME from Goldman Sachs.  I still shake my head when I read  of such things.